In the mind of Rachel Sager Lynch, Marcellus gas glistens through gold-leaf mosaic glass that lines a two-inch-thick half-pipe plunging through the layers of the earth. First clay, then sandstone, then coal, water, limestone and, finally — prolifically — shale.

She’s an artist, not a driller, though there’s a parallel between her method and the process depicted in her art. It starts with a plan, a pipe curving into a horizontal trajectory on the canvas. The rest is about responding to the elements — working with the earth’s textures to get the maximum yield.

Just as the gas industry has seen its business boom since the Marcellus came on the scene, so has Sager Lynch.

For years, the artist sold to family, friends and art collectors, but her shale well work has sparked a corporate interest, and almost all of her well pieces have been snatched up by people and companies in the industry.

Last year, Huntley & Huntley, a gas firm in Monroeville, gifted one of her pieces called Frack to Range Resources upon the opening of Range’s new headquarters at Southpointe.

In a few weeks, the yet-unfinished canvas in her studio — another in the “Mighty Marcellus” series — will be the centerpiece in the lobby of Fulbright & Jaworski, an energy law firm at Southpointe.

Her Marcellus pieces mix shale extracted from 8,000 feet under the earth’s surface and vintage Italian smalti glass from the St. Louis Basilica with pebbles from her driveway and coal found at abandoned railroad tracks.

With the help of a geologist friend, Sager Lynch researches Marcellus outcrop locations and fills up her car with shale pieces found above the surface. The rock is brittle and cracks easily by hand.

Not long ago, Range Resources gave her a bucket of shale cuttings from one of its wells that were so dense she could smell the gas. That took a hammer to mold.

It takes her about a month to six weeks to complete one Marcellus mosaic, which can cost between $2,000 and $10,000 on commission. Through the process of finding the materials and learning how to assemble them, Sager Lynch is negotiating her own feelings about the gas rush.

“Living in Southwestern Pennsylvania these last few years has been a bit like finding oneself onstage,” Sager Lynch wrote in an artist’s statement to accompany a recent gallery show. “Our small slice of the world has become a lightning rod for environmentalists and a boon for the gas industry, landowners and the slippery dream of energy independence.”

When Sager Lynch sold her first “Mighty Marcellus” mosaic to Huntley & Huntley, it launched an ongoing dialogue between the artist and the company’s Vice President Mike Hillebrand about the technical details of drilling, as well as the broader pros and cons of shale exploration.

“For us, getting to hear what some of her colleagues’ major concerns are about this — I think it’s been good for both sides,” Hillebrand said.

Sager Lynch said she tries to keep opinions out of her work.

“I’m not trying to celebrate; I’m just trying to document,” she said. “Somehow I’ve always really wanted to put nature and industry together. Some people think industry is ugly. It’s not an ugly thing to me.”

Part of that has to do with her upbringing. Sager Lynch said the image of a pipeline penetrating the earth came to her one day three years ago, and she immediately thought of her father, a former coal man and an amateur geologist. She called him right away and demanded he list the layers of the earth in her hometown of Fayette County, which he did right off the top of his head, Sager Lynch said.

Jeff Sager ran a coal company started by his grandfather and knew well what lies 1,000 feet beneath the earth in Fayette County. He got to know the gas industry and, by extension, the earths’ deeper layers, as a landowner.

“The gas guys would come around back in the ’80s, and they would give you a couple of dollars per acre,” he said. “All the farmers signed up, and it would help pay your property taxes, (but), of course, nobody ever drilled.”

In the 1990s, interest in shallow gas brought the rate up a bit and, more recently, shale gas changed everything.

“It went from $5 an acre to $30 an acre to $500 to $1,500,” Jeff Sager said. “And all you hoped for is that they didn’t drill so they’d renew.”

As Jeff Sager helped his daughter research what’s underground, her brother, Matt Sager, helped her get exposure to the gas industry through his Washington County restaurant, Palazzo 1837.

It’s no accident that Palazzo opened three years ago in the middle of what Matt Sager calls the “modern gold rush.” It’s an Italian restaurant whose menu includes a huge Angus steak from Arkansas, a drink called “The Marcellus Shale” and mosaics of gas wells on the walls.

“Whenever I host a party for Range Resources, Atlas Resources or EQT, I’ll make it a point to show it to them or they’ll see it and ask me what it is,” Matt Sager said.

Some weeks, up to half of his business comes from the industry, and many patrons ask about the shale on the wall. Some even request to have the art placed in their dining area, Sager Lynch said.

Palazzo is where Jeremy Mercer, a partner at Fulbright & Jaworski’s Southpointe office, first saw Sager Lynch’s Marcellus work up close before recommending it for lobby art.

“It was just quite a unique piece of art that really was related to the work that we do,” Mercer said of the firm, whose eight attorneys concentrate on oil and gas law.

Mercer said at first, Sager Lynch was still learning about the Marcellus and evolving her pieces to more accurately reflect the drilling process. For example, her first Marcellus piece shows a vertical pipe making a sharp 90-degree turn into the horizontal portion. In reality, the kick-off point where the pipe starts to bend initiates a much more gradual curve into the horizontal pipe. Sager Lynch’s newer pieces reflect that.

“She’s refining them as she goes along,” Mercer said.

Just like the drillers.

Correction/Clarification

Matt Sager's restaurant was misidentified in the original version of this story. It is
Palazzo 1837.